Useful information to know about Civ4 gameplay

[Fistleaf]

I would like to compile a list about the various information about Civ4 gameplay that can only be learnt through trial and error or by reading the Apolyton or CFC forums. This could prove useful even for Civ4 veterans as some of the items are really obscure. Please feel free to contribute. In no particular order:

1. Angkor Wat wonder has no +1 hammer bonus for settled priests.
2. Cities on hills do not spread irrigation. (I always forget this.)
3. Cities on plains hills get +1 hammer.
4. Colonial maintenance is capped at twice distance maintenance. Therefore, building Forbidden Palace on another continent reduces distance maintenance directly and also colonial maintenance indirectly.
5. Blitz units (e.g. tanks) use up 2 moves when attacking enemy on a hill.
6. Only the Combat promotions are applied to the attacker's Strength. All other bonuses (City Raider, Cover, Shock, etc) are applied negatively to the defender's strength.
7. Non-Warlord units only get to keep 10XP when it is upgraded. All the excess XPs are lost.
8. Units with City Garrison promotion get the city defense bonus in forts.
9. Organised Religion civic gives the hammer bonus for Wonders too.
10. Industrious trait (and probably Organised Religion, State Property, forges, etc) increases hammer gain from chopping trees for Wonders.
11. Although settled Military instructors usually get no bonus other that the XP one, they do get culture bonus with Sistine Chapel and science bonus with Representation.
12. Security bureau has the same chance of catching spies as stationing your own spy in a city. There is no additional counterspionage benefit in putting a spy in your city with security bureau.
13. The useful event (Federal Reserve) for reducing inflation can be triggered with Free Market, 1000 Gold and the Corporation tech.

[Unimatrix11]

Wow - indeed useful info there ! Esp. # 7,12 and 13. According to no.7 i´ll have to add another exception to my ´no-promo-till-needed´-doctrine - i wonder how many promos i wasted, cause i tent to delay promoting (even when upgrading). 12 is not that important, but still good to know. And 13 ? Well, that event kicks butt, and since i usually have the other requirements, i´ll make sure i have 1000G in my account from now on... Thanks - Kudos !

[Tattila the Hun]

I have a feeling, that number 5 is also accurate, when attacking from a hill..?

[patcon]

As to #5, it has always been my experience (and I seem to remember reading somewhere) that attacking a unit uses as much movement as moving into that tile unopposed. So attacking a unit on a hill, or in a forest, uses two MP.
Going to do some tests to see if roads/railroads have any effect. I seem to recall that I've been able to attack out of a city to a roaded tile with a 1-MP unit and been able to move back into the city. There's got to be some sort of limit to this though. Can you imagine what a 3-MP, blitz-capable unit could do in RRed territory ... 30 attacks in one turn????

[Jaybe]

If you can use the road/rail network where the combat is (non-enemy territory or you have the commando promotion), then:

If you attack a single unit & advance into the tile, you use up only a portion of a movement point ... only 1/10 if railed;
but if you are attacking a stack of units (and therefore cannot advance), you use a whole movement point (two if attacking a forest or hill).

Yes, a 3-move blitzer can really mount up the XP on a rail network. IF the enemy units are spread out just ONE per tile.

[The Priest]

Check your civics.

Yes when you research a tech which gives access to new civics, it asks you if you want to adopt it.

But it doesn't when you build a wonder which gives access (pyramids) and I don't think it does when a trade gives you a civic granting tech.

The number of times that I have worked hard to get the pyramids for representation, rejoice when I build them, and then forget to adopt representation and only notice twenty turns later! I am sure the same has happened when i have traded bureacracy.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by The Priest
Check your civics.

Yes when you research a tech which gives access to new civics, it asks you if you want to adopt it.

But it doesn't when you build a wonder which gives access (pyramids) and I don't think it does when a trade gives you a civic granting tech.

The number of times that I have worked hard to get the pyramids for representation, rejoice when I build them, and then forget to adopt representation and only notice twenty turns later! I am sure the same has happened when i have traded bureacracy.

Right on Pyramids, wrong on trades. I do the Pyramid thing all the time. Usually something like Organised Religion brings me to the civic screen and... d'oh.

[Tattila the Hun]

Well, the same thing can be said, when I capture Pyramids. I do miss the "I'm also happy to report, that we now control The Pyramids!" from Civ3, when taking cities....

[Will9]

Originally posted by The Priest
Check your civics.

Yes when you research a tech which gives access to new civics, it asks you if you want to adopt it.

But it doesn't when you build a wonder which gives access (pyramids) and I don't think it does when a trade gives you a civic granting tech.

I think you also don't get the change civics popup if you get the enabling tech while still in the 5 turns after your last civic/religion change.

@ #8 in the OP: I think the city raider units also get a bonus attacking a fort.

[Supr49er]

Re: Useful information to know about Civ4 gameplay

Originally posted by Fistleaf ...

3. Cities on plains hills get +1 hammer....

I love building cities on plains hills if I can. Extra defense as well.

[Solomwi]

14. March units heal on the turn of combat. So if a unit with march attacks the enemy and suffers, say, 10% damage on turn X with a 15% healing factor, he will be good as new on turn X+1.

[sowings]

Originally posted by patcon
Can you imagine what a 3-MP, blitz-capable unit could do in RRed territory ... 30 attacks in one turn????

Sadly, no. An attack takes up a minimum of 1 MP. The fact that you were able to move back in to the city with RR just meant that it was a 2MP (or more) unit.

[Vampgelus]

Originally posted by sowings


Sadly, no. An attack takes up a minimum of 1 MP. The fact that you were able to move back in to the city with RR just meant that it was a 2MP (or more) unit.

That's not entirely true.

You can in fact get 4 attacks if you also have the mobility promotion. I noticed that once, can't remember exactly what combination of moves and attacks i had to do for getting the 4 attacks, but it worked (it was a GG armor with morale and mobility promotions).

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by sowings


Sadly, no. An attack takes up a minimum of 1 MP. The fact that you were able to move back in to the city with RR just meant that it was a 2MP (or more) unit.

From my experience, i hold Jaybe´s description as the truth. Since i road every tile in my empire and hardly ever use 2MP units and have seen my troops attack, move-in and move-out again on the same turn, i am pretty sure about this.

[guermantes]

This thread really shows the need for some kind of function in the civilopedia to add your own additional information to entries.

I understand it would need a supermeticulous job to actually complete the civilopedia and also write it in an unambiguous language (Jesus, some sentences meant to explain what something does can be read in 2-3 different ways!). And that they probably can't justify such an undertaking economically since we all can play the game pretty well anyhow. But these things *are* annoying.

Could we hope for that in CivV?

PS. Sometimes I am cynically wondering if the devs did not knowingly leave the civilopedia and the manual with apparent shortcomings they could have corrected, just to make people ask questions online and thus weld a community around the game. If so, it has worked pretty well.